Positive day, but Alonso still cautious

Fernando Alonso has played down McLaren's chances of making it into Q3 on Saturday despite a positive start to the Hungarian GP weekend.

The Spaniard and his team-mate Jenson Button were 11th and 12 fastest respectively in FP1 while Alonso improved to eighth place in the second session with the second McLaren again down in 12th.

One of the major positives for the Woking squad was the fact that neither of their drivers had any reliability issues, but Alonso is still wary of their progress as one or two teams didn't show their true pace on Friday.

"I think we saw some Fridays that people are not showing the potential, like Williams – sometimes on Friday they run quite heavy or quite slow and then on Saturday, they are very competitive," he said.

"Force India didn't run today as well in FP2, so I think there are some cars that will potentially be in front of us tomorrow.

"But I am happy with the performance of the car – it is a little bit better every race and it was a trouble-free Friday for us. Today both cars ran and completed the programme without any issues. So, a positive start – but the important thing is tomorrow in qualifying and especially the race."

He added: "The long runs seem competitive but as we know here, qualifying is the biggest thing here because overtaking is difficult."